Today is Thursday, March 10, the 69th day of 2016. There are 296 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1496 – Christopher Columbus concludes his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he leaves Hispaniola for Spain.
1624 – England declares war on Spain; Dutch send expedition to Bahia, Brazil.
1629 – England’s King Charles I dissolves Parliament and doesn’t call it back for 11 years.
1785 – Thomas Jefferson is named U.S. Minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
1848 – U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with Mexico.
1862 – Britain and France recognize independence of Zanzibar; the U.S. government issues its first paper money.
1876 – The first successful voice transmission over Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone takes place in Boston as his assistant hears Bell say, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”
1880 – The Salvation Army arrives in the United States from England.
1893 – French colonies of French Guinea and Ivory Coast are formally established.
1900 – Britain signs treaty with Uganda to regulate government with British commissioner as adviser.
1919 – Nationalists riot in Cairo following deportation from Egypt of Said Zaghul Pasha.
1922 – Strikes break out in Johannesburg, South Africa, and martial law is declared.
1942 – Rangoon, Burma — now Yangon, Myanmar, falls to Japanese forces in World War II.
1946 – Italian women vote for the first time.
1948 – The body of the anti-communist foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, Jan Masaryk, is found in the garden of Czernin Palace in Prague after he ‘mysteriously’ fell from a window, making it easier for the Communist Party to consolidate its control.
1949 – Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E. Gillars, also known as “Axis Sally,” is convicted in Washington, D.C., of treason. She served 12 years in prison.
1952 – Soviet Union proposes four-power conference on unification and disarmament of Germany.
1959 – The Dalai Lama leads a rebellion against Chinese rule. The revolt fails and the Dalai Lama flees to India.
1969 – James Earl Ray pleads guilty in Memphis, Tennessee, to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., but later repudiates his plea.
1972 – Cambodia’s Premier Lon Nol takes over complete control of Cambodian government.
1975 – North Vietnamese troops seize most of South Vietnam’s provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot in central highlands.
1985 – Konstantin U. Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for just 13 months, dies at age 73.
1990 – Georgia becomes the fourth Soviet republic to condemn its annexation to the Soviet Union.
1991 – A half million people rally in Moscow in support of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
1998 – Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the 82-year-old former dictator of Chile, steps down from his position as army commander and is sworn in as senator for life under a provision written into the constitution by his regime.
2005 – After years of denials, Pakistan admits its top nuclear scientist sold centrifuges to Iran, though it sticks by its claim it knew nothing of his activities and insists he will not be turned over to another country for prosecution.
2014 — Oscar Pistorius is vividly reminded at his murder trial in South Africa of the gruesome injuries he inflicted on his girlfriend when a pathologist describes how the Olympic athlete fatally shot her multiple times with bullets designed to inflict maximum damage.
2015 — U.S. condemnation of the use of force by Myanmar police against students protesting for academic freedom comes as international optimism over the former pariah nation’s democratic transition withers in a crucial election year.
Today’s Birthdays:
Friedrich Schlegel, German poet (1772-1829); Pablo Sarasate (Martin Meliton), Spanish violinist (1844-1908); Prince Edward, fourth child of England’s Queen Elizabeth II (1964–); David Rabe, U.S. playwright (1940–); Chuck Norris, U.S. actor (1940–); Sharon Stone, U.S. actress (1958–); Edie Brickell, U.S. singer (1966–); Timbaland, U.S. rapper/producer (1972–).
Thought For Today:
Show me a man who claims he is objective and I’ll show you a man with illusions. — Henry R. Luce, American magazine publisher (1898-1967).
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
